Asian-angrez Khan is 'Best of British'

If Amir Khan gets an Olympic boxing gold on Sunday, will our Britain-based Indian cousins be willing to call themselves Asian once again?
It is a moot point. And a very important one. Khan is of Pakistani origin. That''s the very community Britain''s 1.3-million Indians rather look down upon. British Pakistanis are generally seen to be poorer, more pig-headed, ignorant, culturally-moribund, less enlightened and more likely to get into trouble than British Indians.The Pakistanis are blamed for starting the racial troubles in that long hot summer in north-western England a few years ago. The Pakistanis are the ones blamed for exporting suicide bombers around the world.
So why should we — the prosperous, peaceful, politically- integrated end of immigrant society — allow ourselves to be put into one big brown bag labelled British Asian? That is the argument and it is the paraphrased view of no less than Indian officialdom.
The drumbeats of British Indian self-determination and identity-entitlement have never been louder. But one rather wonders if it will be heard above the roars of pride over Khan from pubs up and down the UK. As Britain''s sole boxing representative, the 17-year-old lad''s remarkable Olympic performance has created a feel-good Asian-Angrez bhai-bhai feeling throughout the nation. The great Floyd Patterson was the last 17-year-old to win an Olympic crown in 1952 when he took the middleweight title. Today, Khan offers the dizzying prospect of going one better and making Olympic history, if he beats Cuba''s Mario Cesar Kindelan Mesa.
The lanky lad, who is not embarrassed to be a mummy''s boy, belongs to north-west England. He looks and sounds as Asian as they come. It is noteworthy that British commentators picked out his mother''s bright blue sari in all the footage and newspaper photographs of the Games.
And yet, Khan is firmly wrapped in the Union flag and all of Britain already loves him. Till now, almost totally unknown to anyone outside his tiny hometown, where Asians account for just 9 per cent of the 260,000 population, Khan has suddenly become the poster boy of British Asian integration. Wearing a British vest and proudly bearing aloft the silver medal he has already won for his country, Khan has overnight become ''Best of British''.
It is a good brand for the son of immigrants and notably, it is one the sports-mad English are particularly partial to.
So, might it be time for the standoffish Indian community to squeeze itself back into the big brown box labelled British Asian? The Indians, of course, are the backbone of British business; they are immigrant paragons, overwhelmingly law-abiding, indisputably driven to higher (and higher) education and aspirational to a fault.
But they do not have the lean, tensile glamour of an Olympic boxing hero. Might it be so unwise to join the national rejoicing and feel a special burst of pride in an Asian lad''s utterly spectacular success? Particularly since official labels matter little. On Britain''s streets, we are all Pakis anyway.